How I taught life
Study English is best in Britain. Having learned this capital truth, thousands of our citizens annually go to courses in this country. Last year, ours occupied the seventh place in the world by the number of foreigners who came to learn English to the UK.
Recently, from three-week language courses in London, my friend Zoya returned, an employee of a solid our bank. Traction to the knowledge cost her not cheap: $ 1.200 She paid for training and accommodation, $ 420 for tickets, and rides in London, lunches and modest entertainment increased costs for another $ 1.500. I did not immediately recognize my cheerful girlfriend in an irritated and lost girlfriend. After the demonstration of the photographs of the princess Diana brought from London, extended the makeup of which made it similar to transvestite, Zoya told me a weightless story about the trip.
– Idea to hold another vacation with benefit arose for me. I wanted to improve English, and there was no time for the courses. Intensive in England – this, I thought, what’s necessary. And I appealed to the agency that specializes in learning students with languages abroad. Tigran, a young employee of the company, took all the concerns about the design of documents for himself – even brought the questionnaires and other papers to work.
Visa, ticket, three hours of flight – and the first disappointment.
The hostess of the house in which I had to live, turned out to be elderly German. In London, Mrs. Drummer lived 40 years old, but with English grammar was not in Ladakh. Sometimes, when I asked to explain the meaning of some word, she said: "A minute, now I will see in the sensible dictionary". Nevertheless, it is with the hostess I "Talking": The old woman turned out to be divided and often dedicated me to the details of his nomudinal being.
It should be noted that a significant part of it was a cold war with neighbors behind the wall. As soon as I crossed the threshold, as I heard:
– They had a scandal again! She screamed so words! Listen, she is just a bitch (Bitch).
From politeness I expressed the mistress of sympathy. But soon her stories began to resemble a manic nonsense: Once she showed me his letter to the organization – something like a committee on the protection of the rights of national minorities, along with photographs. From the window she managed to fall out the British flag, which took the neighbors in the yard of his house. "They did it because I am German. They are racists", – Drashing outflowed eyes, whisper declared her. Such confessions scared me not for a joke.
After watching the dream of the coming English thrillers, I imagined how Mrs. Drurmeyer would steal my bedroom with a huge kitchen knife.
However, nothing threatened me. But my stomach. Dry sandwiches with which the hostess was bald me for dinner led me to the despondency until I hinted that the sandwiches in Russia do not eat in the evening. She was terribly insulted, but I finally got a normal dinner.
However, I was still lucky: with some of my summands, the owners almost did not speak, they were not allowed to watch TV and demanded to come home no later than a certain hour.
The second disappointment was the study herself. Classes passed sluggish, teachers – cute, however, people – in the lessons, in my opinion, just nicely spent time. Sometimes they could speak the whole lesson, without worrying about us at least somehow practiced in the language. And sometimes, on the contrary, we were given a task for a whole lesson, and the teacher was dismissed for us. Tasks most often were such: to make a story on the picture or read the text and answer questions (however, it was the reading of the textbook that brought some kind of benefit – only from the book we managed to learn new expressions).
One teacher to me, however, I liked – he spent lessons "in game form". But we enjoyed his society for a short time – two days after the start of classes, he drew into a wedding trip.
Before the excursions that I promised in Moscow, it never came. Why there are excursions – there soon stopped the classes.
Once we all ended up before locked gates. "Problems with castment", – The official version sounded. Problems with the castle lasted almost a week: we obediently came to the locked doors, trusting the words: "Tomorrow classes will be accurate".
There were rumors among students that the school went bankrupt. Some of them who studied at school more than one month said that recently the quality of teaching deteriorated significantly, the best teachers from school went.
I thought that the agency in Moscow inflated me strongly, but other students, mostly the Germans, assured that they had previously guessed certificates, and our school is considered very good.
Studies still resumed. And in a new place. As it turned out, the school who rented the building was owed to his owners, and had to hastily look for another room. The most serious students decided to go to other schools and demanded to return the training fee. However, the school was not in a hurry. German students are lucky the most: learning of what happened, their agency immediately promised to return money for the week of study and residence.
The rest was more difficult. For example me. When I appealed to the school administration, I wrote to me that before leaving all the money returned for missed days. I serenely lived my last week and anticipated the upcoming shopping.
On the last day of classes I did not give money. The school manager explained: fee for my training has not yet been received from Moscow. I was surprised: a copy "bills" I kept in my hands while I was not taken to me in the English embassy when they gave a visa.
I rushed calling Tigran. Nobody approached the phone – in Moscow there was an evening, and even Friday. Without any mood I eaten my lunch bought for the last money. Cute German Thomas, sitting in the same cafe, asked what was the matter. I explained.
– I will go with you to the administration, "said Thomas.
The manager, who did not expect such a turn of events (obviously, she counted that the our bore would simply harm), shoved that he would try to solve the problem. And indeed, after some one and a half hours I was given a check. Exactly 130 pounds. That is, they reimburse me for a minimum – the weekly graduation price (but not for living in London, when there were no lessons and looked at school to no avail).
Some explanations followed, but they did not interest me: I hurried to the bank – they are closed in London early. "Perhaps you have time", – He said manager. But at Thomas – the German decided to go with me to the end – did not have time.
Already later it became clear that the manager, sending us to the bank, could not not know that at that moment he was already closed. It seems that she counted that I fly on Saturday and therefore I could not get the money. But I had a ticket on Sunday! On Saturday, I went to the bank again – and I still received my legitimate 130 pounds.
However, they didn’t fix my mood. For two weeks of study, I did not manage to increase the level of English (which reflected the certificate received at school). True, as the same certificate reported, I was "Significant progress has been achieved" inside my initial level.
And Thanks.
And I will not go to study with this company anymore: learning scientist.
For a comment "I" appealed to the British Council in Moscow. It turned out that the school in which Zoya went, has a good reputation and accreditation of the British Council. According to representatives of the agency that sent the heroine of this material on the trip, there are still no complaints from customers. Just zoe is not lucky. The fact is that the director of the school has not recently been a relationship with its owner. That "Nadilla" on landlords, those raised the cost of rent almost 4 times, and school had to be urgently moved to another room. Just this moment and found Zoya. The agency is not guilty.
Similar force majeure circumstances can happen with any good school – here you can not do anything, life – she is in Britain. However, it happens that the agency is to blame, and the client himself – for example, when the agency sends you to cheap and knowingly bad linguistic courses. Before giving money, find out whether the school is accredited by the British Council and is it included in ARELS – "Association of recognized English schools" (or to the National Association of That Country, where are you going).
And another recommendation from the British Council. Choosing a school, decide what you really want: to increase the level of spoken language or, for example, to learn "specialized" foreign. Courses professional vocabulary in some schools simply no.
